Fabian Ekeruche
The Society for Planet and Prosperity (SPP), GCA Capital Partners and Climate Advisers Network (Berlin) have listed 11 key measures for Nigeria to achieve net-zero emissions by 2060.
Professor Chukwumerije Okereke, an internationally recognised scholar stated this at a news conference on Monday in Abuja.
Okereke said that the 11 measures were adopted out of a long list of 35 measures identified in key policy documents across priority sectors: Agriculture, Forestry and Land Use, Industry and Housing, Oil & Gas, Power, Transport, Waste and Water.
Okereke listed the top 11 measures to include: on- and Off-grid generation of renewable electricity, elimination of Diesel and Gasoline generators by 2030, Planting of 300 million trees by 2030.
Others included End gas flaring by 2030, reduce wood cooking and introduce clean cooking to 30 million households, construction of 300,000 green homes annually for 5 years, shift to Bus Rapid Transport with enforcement of emission standards.
He also added Transition to properly designed engineered landfill with state-of-the-art gas collection systems, enhanced irrigation powered by renewable energy, increase energy efficiency by reducing transmission losses, and restoration of landscape scale and recharge of Lake Chad Basin.
According to him, a rough calculation indicates that these measures could result in emissions reduction of about 174.01 million metric tonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2030, similar to fossil emissions of Algeria or Iraq in 2021.
The scholar said that the aim of the project was to present the steps and decisions in a format that is accessible to a wider public through communication materials that can stimulate and inform a wider public debate involving civil society, policymakers and more importantly, the National Council on Climate Change (NCCC) as it embarks on full implementation of its mandate.
“Taken together, the Top 11 measures are best-suited to private and blended types of investment, which is essential in the current circumstances and are expected to signal an observable shift in the course of decision making for massive economic and social development while putting Nigeria on the path of achieving her net-zero ambitions by 2060,” Okereke said.
He said that Nigeria at the brink of multiple climate crisis submitted an ambitious Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), presented its Energy Transition Plan and subsequently passed the Climate Change Act into law in 2021.
He said that few months later, Nigeria launched its Long-Term Vision to 2050 (LTV2050) that is now expected to appraise the development of its Long-Term Low Emission Development Strategy.
He added that the significance of these steps was to galvanise effective action towards meeting its commitment made at the COP26 in Glasgow to achieve net-zero target by 2060.
Okereke said that the project embarked by SPP and others analysed decisions and actions that, if taken in the next five years, would underpin a socio-economic transformation required to enable Nigeria to meet the government’s 2060 net-zero objective announced at COP26 in Glasgow.
“The context of the project with regards to benefits and successful implementation of each measure were assessed based on 4 criteria:
1) Economic diversification, (youth) job creation and poverty reduction;
“2) Security, social safeguards, and gender equality;
” 3) Food security & public and environmental health; and
“4) Sustainable and affordable power and transport to justify the diversity and sustainability of the measures.
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